The news has been chattering over the past weekend about a little TG "boy" named Bobby, who wanted to join the Girl Scouts. Initially Bobby was told she could not be a girl scout, but then people higher up in the organization made it clear that this was misunderstood, and Bobby or any other boy who is living as a girl is welcome in Girl Scouts.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/transgender-boy-attempt-join-girl-scouts-initially-rejected-boy-parts-article-1.968179
While this may sound highly unusual, Boy Scouts have been open to girls since the 1990s - why shouldn't it be the other way around as well? **
Anyone who knows me knows I can't be a shining example of being unbiased on this issue. It's every LGs dream to be "just like the other little girls" and be able to regress in age and go to a girls school, take dance classes (or gymnastics, or cheerleading...), wear cute clothes, and for many ... join the Girl Scouts. What if we really could pull that off? I bet there are a lot who would. I know I would.
I won't dwell on whether Bobby is really TG, or is being unduly influenced by his mother. There is no doubt in my mind that some people are born with the mind of a girl and the body of a boy. There are also some people born with the body of a boy and some characteristics that are feminine. There are some who grow up in an environment that cultivates these characteristics, and some who grow up in an environment that induces or even demands that they internalize these feelings and keep them bottled up. The same is true of course for those born in girls' bodies with the mind or characteristics of a boy. In all of this mess, there are also those who may have nothing more than a curiosity, and grow completely out of it.
Every person is different. This seems to be unknown to many people who have commented on Bobby's story in the last week. There are some who seem set on proving Bobby had a curiosity and his mother exploited it and turned him into a "sissy". There are others who seem intent one proving that Bobby is definitely a TG, even at the tender age of seven. Still others insist that Bobby and his mother both need professional help. Not one of the people making these arguments have ever MET Bobby or his mother. Thus they should be understood to be completely unqualified to make any such judgment! One man even claimed to be a Psychologist, then went on to show he was ignorant of the difference between Transgender, Transexual, and Homosexual!
Focussing beyond all of this, what we have here is a young person who wanted to join the Girl Scouts. Let's eliminate all gender specifics for a moment and think about the activities involved. In both Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts one can earn badges. In Girl Scouts, there are badges for Child Care, Baking Cookies, Dance, First Aid, Drawing and Painting, Cooking, Sewing, and making jewelry. There are many others as well, including such things as Car Care, and Ms. Fix-it. In Boy Scouts, one can earn badges for many athletic type activities, Bugling, American Labor, American Business (I'm not making these up!), Chemistry, Chess, Leatherworking, Metalworking, or Rifle or Shotgun Shooting. Again, there are more - interestingly there is a Boy Scout Badge for Cooking. There is nothing for sewing, and very little focus to the arts. Now consider ... what if a boy does not like what Boy Scouts do? It appears the Girl Scouts make more of an effort to be inclusive than the Boy Scouts.
Should a child (or anyone for that matter) be doomed to a life of exclusion just for being different than the status quo? And whose standard are we using to judge status quo anyway? When I was a kid, I would come home from school and be asked what I did. I would mention playing with _____ or with ______ - all were girl's names. That's because I only played with the girls. I remember being asked about that even at that age, and saying, "I don't like what the boys play. They're dumb." Although at that age, I never fully understood why I was so much different from all the other boys. I was content to play jacks, jump rope, and play with my sisters doll house. I made up elaborate plays in my head and acted them out ... being called blessed with a vivid imagination. Later, when I got older and I was banned from playing with doll houses, I built my own from shoe boxes and leftover tile and carpet from my parents' remodeling of our house. I built furniture from cardboard. Sometimes I built houses with Legos or Dominos. When I was an adult and out on my own, I bought the things I SHOULD have had but never got as a child - my own dollies and my own doll house. Screw what anyone else thought about it - it's none of their business anyway.
I want to look at one other point, however. Bobby's wish was not really to join the Girl Scouts, per se. Bobby's only wish was to be just like the other little girls. I am reasonably certain that nobody makes a kid pull down his pants to prove whether he's a boy or girl. The pictures of Bobby show him to be quite a cute little girl, and his name is not unbelievably masculine. The Girl Scouts have issued a statement in which they specifically state that they do not make anyone prove the gender of their child. So, who told that Bobby is actually a boy (biologically)? And after that, once the Girl Scouts organization heard this situation and told Bobby's mother that he could in fact join Girl Scouts, who alerted the media? Bobby's mother appears to be using him to get attention, and this is wrong. If she really wanted to help him be the girl she claimns he wants to be, every effort should have been made to keep this quiet - now that all this attention has been rained upon it, Bobby can never get the wish to be "just like the other little girls".*
* I have purposefully left out Bobby's full name and location. All the organizations who insisted upon giving all this information have participated in bringing all this attention on Bobby, which will ultimately make it impossible for him to live as a normal girl.
** In mid February of 2011, a teenage boy in London attempted to join Girl Guides and was turned away. In this case the leaders fiercely defended their stance - but the details are completely different from this case. Whereas the boy from London identifies as a BOY, Bobby identifies and lives as a GIRL. Also, Wikipedia claims that Girl Guides is open to both boys and girls in some countries, however, it does not list the countries nor does it have any citation for this remark.
